

When you have a topic or question of interest, what can you do with it?
"An empirical relationship between two variables such that (1) changes in one are as- sociated with changes in the other, or (2) particular attributes of one variable are associated with particular attributes of the other." (Babbie 94)
"A coincidental statistical correlation between two variables, shown to be caused by some third variable." (Babbie 94)
Unit of Analysis
(Reductionist fallacy, individualist fallacy, exception fallacy)
An example:
Ragin's purpose of soical research:
Theda Skocpol (1979): States and Social Revolutions